Open CRM 4.0 and CRM 2011 instances using previous Internet Explorer versions

Dynamics CRM 2015 will be available soon but many customers are still using successfully CRM 4.0 (released in 2007) or CRM 2011 (nearly 4 years old) for their business processes. On the other hand we have Operating Systems and browsers updated regularly due to security reasons or machine upgrades.

Dynamics CRM has been always compatible with Internet Explorer but not with all the versions, we can't expect to use Internet Explorer 6 with the latest version or pretend to use IE11 with CRM 4.0.

As developer I faced this issue when I upgraded my PC to Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 11, I wasn't able anymore to use a CRM 2011 instance, the mobile version was prompted to me.



CRM 2011 is compatible with Internet Explorer 11, but it must have Rollup 17 installed, and that wasn't the case.
Which Internet Explorer version can be used in order to access correctly Dynamics CRM? Assuming we don't know if a rollup is installed, the IE versions that can be used with RTM are:

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 for CRM 4.0
Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9 for CRM 2011
Internet Explorer 8, 9, 10 for CRM 2013

Based on this data Internet Explorer 7 is the best candidate for CRM 4.0 and CRM 2011. We can rely on a Virtual Machine in order to use a previous Internet Explorer version without messing up our current environment.

Creating a VM is a tedious process and it can take several hours. Lucky for us Microsoft provides a set of Internet Explorer VMs ready to be downloaded.
They are available at modern.IE, the intended use is to test a website compatibility with old browsers but they are also good to access occasionally to Dynamics CRM. I wrote occasionally because these VMs are not meant for a production use and the Windows version included is a trial.
If it's necessary to use constantly an older browser (or you have a Mac) it's better to build a proper VM with the right licenses.
The following VMs are available at modern.IE:

IE 6 - Windows XP
IE 8 - Windows XP
IE 7 - Windows Vista
IE 8 - Windows 7
IE 9 - Windows 7
IE 10 - Windows 7
IE 11 - Windows 7
IE 10 - Windows 8
IE 11 - Windows 8.1

Personally I use VirtualBox (you need to disable Hyper-V in Windows 8 to get better performances) but the VMs are available also for Hyper-V, VMWare, Virtual PC and Parallels.

The (browser compatibility) cake is a lie

Some days ago Google updated Google Chrome reaching version 37. Several Dynamics CRM users reported issues with this version like:

• Export to Excel is not working
• System settings are not saved
• Form editor doesn't accept the changes

UPDATE:
A registry fix is available:
Google Chrome registry fix for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013

The reason is that showModalDialog API has been deprecated inside Chromium (the engine used by Google Chrome) more information here:
Disabling showModalDialog
Neil McDonald found a solution using a Group Policy, details in his blog:
Chrome 37 breaks CRM 2011 functionality

The current solution is "use another browser".

And before you are able to finish the word "browser" the obvious question is prompted to you: "But Microsoft states that Dynamics CRM is supported on the latest browser versions, why it's not working?"

The question is totally legit and MSDN has also a page about: Web application requirements for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Microsoft simply made a promise they can't always deliver, because they don't develop Google Chrome or the other browsers they decided to support, ergo "the cake is a lie".
With Google Chrome there is also another problem: you can't rollback to an older version because Google doesn't keep a public archive of their builds. So another question surfaces: "How can I avoid to have these issues again?"

The answer is to prioritize the supported browsers, naturally Internet Explorer will be your first choice (version 11, not version 8 please) and Firefox as an alternative, because they keep a public archive of their builds: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
If in the future a Firefox release is not compatible with Dynamics CRM, the users can always install the previous working version (shame on you Google Chrome!).